The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity (29 page)

But this was a larger problem, one that was not Hestia's to solve. Not that she could.

Not today, at least.

The storefront door opened. Iannon slipped out.

So he comes to me
, Hestia thought, and stepped from hiding. “Youngling, I am here,” she said in a low voice, pitched for fae ears.

Iannon walked toward her, the moonlight casting shadows on his pale face. He had let his glamour slip away almost entirely, but even if a human saw him now, they would only see a far-too-pretty young man. Not for the first time, Hestia wondered how much human blood the youngling carried. He blended in altogether too well here to be pure fae.

“You cannot have her,” he said without preamble as he reached Hestia.

“You cannot, either. It is wrong for you to take her thus. Return her at once.”

“Too late,” he laughed, and Hestia started.

She knew at once what he had done, even before she sensed his confederates darting out the back way. Towards Buena Vista and the doorway under the Hill.

Iannon ran off after his partners in crime. Hestia gave chase even as she knew she would not catch them before they crossed over. They had had too much of a head start, and she was hindered here in the heavy, unmagical air.

Not a problem, though. She'd snare them easily in Faerie. Then she'd drag the entire sorry bunch before the king and queen, red-handed with their new captive. Enough diplomacy: she was fed up and ready to spend
some of her own political capital before the problem became even worse.

Thus reassuring herself, Hestia covered the distance to Buena Vista in a few minutes and almost dove blindly into the doorway before she realized it had been shut to her.

“By the Tree!” she shrieked, and flung a counter-charm.

The passage home did not budge.

She paused, looking at it more closely. “Why, the little worms …” she muttered.

They had somehow gotten hold of a time-charm. The Lady's work again, no doubt; none of the younglings had this kind of power.

But it meant that there was nothing Hestia could do until it wore off on its own. Which would be in seven days' time, by the shape and scent of the charm.

Stuck in the human realm for seven days!

Hestia stood in the dreary woods of Buena Vista Park and slowly shook her head.

Iannon brought everyone through in a jumbled rush of laughter and bruised elbows. Lucas was carrying the changeling; she was worthless now, but not for long. Iannon would begin her reeducation at once. Her powers would grow with every breath of Faerie air she took in, every bite of magical food she ate.

And thus their strength would grow, for she would be grateful to her rescuers.

It could not be soon enough before the Ferrishyns became ascendant in Faerie. Far too long had the weak, peace-loving factions ruled here, endangering all of the fae with their tactics of appeasement, their willful ignorance of the dangers of humankind.

King Goren and his foolish new queen would be taken down.

When he thought about it, Iannon could almost be glad for the changelings. Full-blooded fairies, raised by the enemy, returned home. What more valuable allies could there be?

For now, however, the girl had to be nourished, cared for. Then she could be introduced to the others. After that, she could be told of her rightful place in the world.

“Bring her along gently,” Iannon said, leading his group to the Lady. He could see that Loretta was dazed by her surroundings. She tasted the air, savoring it; he smiled to imagine her first breaths here. She would never again be satisfied in the human realm.

This was his favorite part of their reclamation project: the changelings' earliest impressions of Faerie. Here was light and warmth and a golden-green meadow. A large, gleaming house—nearly a palace—was nestled into the trees at the far edge. And her new companions … Iannon could see Loretta realizing that they no longer looked quite so human. Gardenia's ears took their proper shape, and Lucas became feral, though still lovely, his own ears tufted with a golden fur.

“You are one of us,” Iannon whispered to her once more. He'd told her several times that she was a fairy, a magical creature, who belonged here, with them. The humans who had raised her were no relation. He knew the knowledge would soak in over time.

Iannon looked down to give her a gentle smile. Loretta gazed at him wide-eyed, and smiled back, clearly in the first stages of overwhelming infatuation.

Ah well. She would learn.

“Welcome home,” he told her.

*    *    *

Hestia roamed the night streets of San Francisco, brooding. Her anger had flashed and then dissipated; she was not one to waste energy on worthless emotions. The time-charm was set, and that was that. She was going to spend the next week on the human side.

She could go a week without eating or sleeping, of course, though she'd be far more comfortable if she found a decent resting spot, one where she could release the glamour and be as she was. For a brief moment she considered the now-abandoned store the Ferrishyn younglings had used, but quickly discarded that idea. She wouldn't taint herself with their indecency, their evil energies.

They were boys. No telling how nasty the place must be.

She needn't push herself to hunger, either. She had brought a few morsels of fae food with her, enough to remind her of home if need be.

Her feet grew tired in their odd and confining human shoes as she walked through the night. As the dim light of dawn grew in the east, Hestia boarded a bus, flashing a colorful ribbon at the driver in lieu of fare, and rode where it ventured. The grumbling vehicle carried her to where the edge of the land met the edge of the ocean: a liminal space, a boundary line, a place of great power, though not one the fae generally worked with.

Hestia took this happenstance for its inner meaning and departed the bus. She was not the ordinary sort of fae; she would gladly work with unusual power.

Dropping the shoes by the side of the road, she walked across the damp sand in her proper bare feet. Her confining skirt refused to blow and move in the wind, as skirts
should; she shed that as well, and then her foolish blouse after that. The bitter salt-fogged air embraced her unclad body. The morning had dawned cold and gray, and no humans walked the beach, so Hestia did not need to cloak herself in any glamour. She let it all go now, following the uncomfortable human clothes, and became a fae creature of terrible beauty: sharp teeth, twisting hair that flowed to her ankles, pointed ears, golden eyes.

She ran at the edge of the water, chill waves lapping at her ankles, as she let her mind loose to worry at the problem without conscious intent. Hestia passed the end of the sandy beach and onto rocks, barely noticing. Her nimble feet chose her path here as easily as they had done on the softer surface. Soon it was sand again; she noted this with a tiny corner of her mind.

When this stretch of sand ended as well, Hestia stopped. “I have been going about this all wrong,” she said aloud, to the gulls and the sand clams and the great gray sky.

One week later, Hestia sat in a small, brightly lit room in the Castro. The beautiful young man across the formica dinette from her sipped his tea and frowned. “Why do you have to go?” The tone could have sounded unpleasant, whiny; yet he was so lovely that it was charming instead.

She reached over and patted his hand, making him smile. “This is only for a short time, my sweet. Trust me.”

He lifted his bright green eyes to meet hers. “I do trust you.”

“Finish your biscuit, dear.”

The boy picked up the last of the fae-made cookie and put it in his mouth. “These are so good.”

“Now, remember what to do when they arrive …”

Nodding, he said, “Yes, of course: I am surprised, confused, befuddled; I have no idea why they have come for me. I resist, but then relent the moment they glamour me.”

“Yes. And when they take you through?”

“I pretend to fall for the Lady's charms. And I wait for you.” He beamed at her, like a good student.

“Perfect.” She glanced at the window, at the ray of morning sun. “They should arrive soon, and they must not find me here.” She briefly considered obscuring his memory just a bit, to help him in his role, but decided to leave him as he was. No sense complicating things further than they needed to be.

Hestia got up and kissed the boy. Then she slipped out into the anonymous, human-filled streets and waited to spring her trap.

So the Ferrishyn younglings thought they could outmaneuver her, did they? Hestia ai Morning Glory ten' Amber would show them the value of long life over youthful daring and impetuousness.

And she would demonstrate to the Lady the finer points of using another's weapon against them.

As the sounds of the laughing, roughhousing fairy boys approached the boy's apartment, Hestia smiled and began to make her way to the newly opened doorway home.

Loretta sat among a field of tiny asphodels, watching the vague, glorious sky above. She'd been here for months, it felt like; or possibly only a few hours. She never could tell. The Lady in her grand house of creamy rose stone and gold and cedarwood had been so kind, everything
Iannon had promised, yet already she was coming to see the entire world of Faerie as she saw the sky.

Back in San Francisco, when you looked up into a clear sky, you knew you were seeing forever. Day's azure brilliance, night's glinting depths—it didn't matter. She could understand why the ancient philosophers had decided that the heavens were a family of spheres nested in one another. Like mountains fading into the distance, the sky went on.

But here in the lands under the Hill, there were never any clouds. Even the shadows were tentative. The world folded in on itself, that vague sky elusive as a shadow at the corner of the eye.

A fairy approached. Pert, freckled, slight … Loretta recognized her as Twyla. One of the hundreds she seemed to have been introduced to lately. With or without the ethereal beauty of fairy glamour, the girl was beautiful.

Haunted, too, by some unhappiness that was as covered over and indirectly visible as the sky itself.

Loretta knew a kindred spirit when she saw one.

“Iannon has brought another changeling through,” Twyla said, smiling shyly.

No, Loretta corrected herself, not shyly. Sadly. Just a little while ago, she would still have mistaken the set of those pale lips for bliss itself.

“Will the Lady be seeing her soon?”

“Him,” Twyla corrected. “A beautiful manchild. She has asked for you to attend upon her meeting, in hopes of easing his arrival that it might be better handled than yours was.”

“I will come.” Loretta wondered whether that was wise, whether she might have been smarter to stay amid
the woods and fields. Everything these people did was political. Everything was theater.

She would never have thought to miss working for Mr. Clarkson.

Giggling all over again, Iannon brought the new lad by winding paths to the Lady's home. No one walked in a straight line in Faerie, except to meet their final doom. Even their feasting tables were set in gentle horns, curved in honor of the beast-aspect of the first powers in the world.

Rex, Lucas, and Gardenia hustled the boy along. He was gorgeous even without glamour. The Lady would be quite pleased. Possibly pleased in an extremely personal and profitable—to Iannon—fashion.

He was happier with this work than he'd been with much else in a long time.

The boy stumbled, smiling foolishly. Fae or no fae, he'd been raised among humans too long. Much like that twit Loretta that they'd rescued about a week ago.

Except this one was a keeper. It was almost as if he had a glamour of his own.

“Quality will out,” Iannon sang, to no one in particular.

The boy grinned, and found his footing a bit better on the crushed red coral of this particular winding path.

At the Gate of Horn, one of the side entrances to the Lady's home, Iannon and his little gang were greeted by the old harridan Hestia.
She
was one of the stodgy ones with her head stuck in the past and her heart so closed in on itself she didn't know any more what was good for Faerie and the fae. He still marveled that someone so closed-minded as her had ever been Queen.

“Iannon,” she called out. Her voice was like the closing of a steel trap. “How did you find your time among cold iron and foul air?”

He swept an elegant bow. There was nothing Hestia could do to harm him here on his own protector's doorstep. “The night's a delight, your grace, and the place is no worse under broad daylight.”

“Went shopping for yourself this time, I see.” She nodded at the boy they'd picked up. He grinned foolishly back.

Iannon, struck with a rare, cold moment of self-doubt, shouldered past the elderly fairy. “Bring him in, boys.”

Hestia followed close, as if one with their group, right into the hallway lined with ormolu and marble, decorated with friezes celebrating victories past when their kind had still raised wooden lance and bronze sword in the field against grunting men in animal skins.

Iannon realized he'd been had, at least to a degree. She was here under no invitation except his.

The Lady would be less than pleased with him. He counted on her displeasure with Hestia to be much greater. Two creatures of such might never shared willingly.

Hestia strode through the halls of the Lady's house as if they were her own modest cottage. Most of the secret of power was behaving as if it were already yours. Even so, she allowed herself to linger every few paces in admiration of paintings, mosaics, and the cunningly wire-bound skulls of various enemies of the Ferrishyns. That would give foolish young Iannon a chance to scuttle ahead and adopt the pretense that he had not swept her past the door wards in his careless haste.

That suited Hestia perfectly. Besides, her young man needed to meet the Lady on his own terms. As it were. Hestia preferred to think of herself as a finale rather than as an accompaniment to the main event.